Rear spoilers serve to improve vehicle aerodynamics and can, correspondingly, lower fuel consumption. Various approaches to constructing such rear spoilers are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,688,841 describes a self-inflating structure of film or textile; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,903 and WO 2010/053409 describe similar approaches. DE 20 2009 014 476 U1, DE 20 2009 014 510 U1 and DE 20 2009 015 009 U1 describe rear spoilers constructed out of solid materials, in which the spoiler elements are arranged in a displaceable or pivotable manner in order to enable unimpeded opening of the vehicle door.
DE 102 28 658 A1 describes various folding solutions, in which planar faces are pivoted about a hinge. EP 1 870 321 B1 describes an inflatable construction.
DE 10 2008 036 888 A1 describes various constructions of rear spoilers and the connections thereof to the vehicle. In one such construction, a carrier can be fitted between the rear door and the air guiding element. The carrier can be suspended for a substantially pivoted-out position of the door. In place of such a carrier, the use of a flexible carrier having a hollow space is also described. When pivoting a rear flap outward about the vertical pivot axis thereof, the air guiding element is first also pivoted until it reaches the outer face of the side wall of the vehicle. When the rear flap is subsequently pivoted upward, the flexible carrier element is accordingly compressed.
However, such constructions are generally very complex. Thus, complex joint or hinge constructions and connections of the air guiding element to the vehicle door are generally required.
Some rear spoiler devices enable only the use of relatively short air guiding elements, whereby improvement of the aerodynamics is limited.